"Young Entrepreneur of the Year" and VaioPak Group founder Joe Fogel has built a packaging empire out of a simple idea.

Fresh from being bestowed with the Young Entrepreneur of the Year accolade at the Growing Business Awards, Joe Fogel told us all about his inspiring journey so far.

Joe Fogel beat off competition from the likes of Virtue Drinks founder Rahi Daneshmand and JC Social Media's Jodie CookVaioPak Group was set up by Fogel nearly eight years ago, originally with the goal of creating a platform for brands to advertise to the general public.

The model worked by first securing the backing of companies, and then providing branded products such as coffee cups to independent shops and restaurants free of change. “It was like putting the brand in the hands of the consumer,” Fogel explained.

However, over the course of the company’s first two years, during which it was entirely self-funded, Fogel noticed that many of the shops and restaurants he was providing branded packaging to were actually after innovative items that each were willing to pay for.

It was this demand that led Fogel and his team to focus on being more of a food packaging company – rather than one which was putting brands on the side of sourced packaging.

Production was initially done by going out to China and finding a factory. However, four years ago Fogel formed a partnership with a factory in Ireland. It is there that VaioPak now produces around 80 per cent of its packaging.